UAE Tour 2025 Stage 5

February 21, 2025 It is only about 30KM from the American University Dubai to the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University but for the bicycle racer, it is 160KM including an out and back trip through the desert. There are two things to keep our attention through the desert before the bunch sprint. The first is the Intermediate Sprint competition which has been very entertaining to this point. The second is the potential for crosswind. After a few kilometers, a break did form and the peloton shut down. It would be another showdown between Solution Tech-Vini Fantini and VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Kristian Sbaragli, Manuele Tarozzi and Đorđe Đurić were ahead with Carlos Samudio and Federico Biagini chasing behind. Tarozzi was not keen on letting Samudio into the front group so he kept attacking but that caused some friction with Sbaragli. The five eventually did together and started their endeavor towards the first Intermediate Sprint with 116KM to go. The script would be ripped up with 148KM to go however. Domen Novak and Tadej Pogačar attacked the peloton with Victor Langellotti of Ineos on his wheel. Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto was quick to react as was Kobe Goossens of Intermarché-Wanty and Roberto Carlos González of Solution Tech-Vini Fantini. They quickly got 40 seconds up on the bunch who were bewildered at best. Lidl-Trek, Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Tudor Pro Cycling started to ride like it was a normal break. The Pogačar group caught the original break with 138KM to go to make 11 committed riders at the front and a gap of 1 minute. The Intermediate Sprint arrived and Van Eetvelt opened up 200M from the line. Pogačar came around and pipped him on the line to take the 3 bonus seconds, Van Eetvelt took 2 and Langellotti got the last bonus second. The break reorganized after the sprint and everyone started to ride once again. With 106KM to go, the gap was out to 2 minutes 30 seconds but the sprint teams kept riding and the race was all within 1 minute with 55KM to go. The second Intermediate Sprint came with 44.5KM to go. VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè tried to lead it out but Đurić went long and took the sprint ahead of Tarozzi and Van Eetvelt. The will to ride came out of the break and they were caught by the peloton with 39KM to race. The lead outs got busy with 5KM to go but the road was 7 lanes wide so it turned into a wide angle drag race. A crash halfway down the peloton with 3.5KM to go caused more nerves and the pace went to warp speed. Tudor Pro Cycling led through 1KM to go with Bahrain Victorious well positioned. Luka Mezgec of Jayco AlUla took a flyer on the final corner with 800M to go as another crash near the front of the peloton disrupted the lead outs. Mezgec had a good lead but it was too far to go. The Lidl-Trek lead out for Jonathan Milan took him right to Mezgec. At that point, Milan was on the left side with Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep coming up beside him. On the right was Danny van Poppel of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Phil Bauhaus of Bahrain Victorious. When Merlier got the speed going, he pulled out a lead on Milan and held on for the victory. Matteo Malucelli of XDS-Astana who was following Merlier took second place, just beating Milan into third.